


Mistletoe

by camakitsune



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Body Horror, Gen, Namine - Freeform, Parasitism, Riku - Freeform, Sora - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:07:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28324299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camakitsune/pseuds/camakitsune
Summary: Spectre readily took to Marluxia's command in the battle against Sora, but their plans diverged at the following phase.
Relationships: Marluxia & Spectre Nobody (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5





	Mistletoe

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy some planty body horror. Warning for some fairly disturbing (depending on your tastes) description of Spectre and Marluxia's union.

It only took until the count of six to burrow roots in, shroud a heart completely in their gnarled grip, and to pull it forth to rend it from its vessel in a single, brutal swing. Marluxia and Sora both stood in place, held like puppets on strings by his mighty partner’s roots. But the only one here who would be made a puppet was the boy gone slack in her hold, his severed heart secured from the tug of darkness by the mesh of roots holding it.

Behind Marluxia, that Spectre come to grant his wish straightened, stood her scythe upright with a heavy bang against their armored ark. “It is done,” she echoed in his mind.

It exhausted him this much just to wear Sora down enough to let her reap his heart. His chest heaved. With each breath, he felt her inside him, gliding along the surface of his lungs.

Praise was in order. He twisted as much as his root-gripped body would permit and he faced her for the first time since conceiving her. “You performed spectacularly.”

Far above, her tranquil smile deepened. “I’m glad.”

“Can you separate from me?”

“It is not safe.”

He straightened. “As I thought.” When she reached into him, she had absorbed every cell displaced by her burrowing to feed her growth. At this point, the roots he allowed to parasitize him were also keeping him from collapsing where he stood like a white-rotted tree. But even now, as he needed to bide the slow process of her easing out of him, he had no time to rest on his laurels. He raised his arm, and marionette-string tendrils tugged at his bones.

Petals converged between him and the felled Keywielder. A mock-up of himself – without the holes and invading roots – settled into form.

“Bring me Naminé.”

Spectre had come to him like a dandelion seed on the wind at his moment of need. Or perhaps she was a stickseed latched onto him from the beginning, dormant until his desperation awakened her. However she arrived, that faint glimmer of hope had harvested him his Keybearer, and opened a door to the next phase of his resistance against the Organization.

Naminé was much more cooperative when she arrived with his copy. As for the replica Riku, he could ensure later that he wouldn’t be back again.

Marluxia was never more pleased to see Naminé than when she was silent and cowering in fear. His Spectre had taken up her weapon at the arrival of a stranger. He let her stay that way, permitted Naminé a moment to gawk up and take in the sight of the power he commanded.

“Naminé.”

His voice startled her attention back to him. This was the frightened little lamb he recognized, stripped of the insubordination that Sora and the false Riku encouraged.

“I am willing to give you a light punishment if you pick up where we left off with this project.”

She shrunk into herself, cast her eyes low. Old habits died hard. “I told you, I don’t want to hurt Sora anymore,” she tried, shaky. “There has to be another way.”

All that defiance, tamped down into submission and bargaining. Were Marluxia a weaker man, he might be tempted to soften for that cute pout and sweet cracked-toffee voice. “If you don’t want him damaged any further, then you will behave.” He pointed past her. “See what your little rebellion has done to him already.”

She turned back, to where Sora slumped in Spectre’s thorny grasp, almost peaceful in the sleep of severance. Naminé murmured his name in disbelief.

“The choice is yours,” he pressed.

Much time could be purchased in the realm between, where hours stretched in what the realm of light experienced in moments. But this boon had its limits – Naminé needed stability (both physical and mental) to do the work of tidying Sora’s memories. Constantly roving through the realm between on his guardian’s vacated armor didn’t very well provide that.

More concerning, Marluxia couldn’t get Spectre to stand down in Naminé’s presence.

Spectre had no skill for battle of her own, having been merely a mote of light bearing a wish for strength. But she had readily taken to Marluxia’s command in battle, letting him pilot her untrained might. Her defiance outside of battle, on the other hand, was a liability. The last thing he needed was her attacking the very string he needed to pull to mobilize Sora.

At least in this regard, they could take advantage of the time the realm between offered. Newborn Nobodies needed time to make any sense of the world around them.

Marluxia had been aware of Spectre’s tendrils rearranging inside him. He took it as a sign of progress when he no longer felt her gnarled grip against his bones. It wasn’t until someone – that sorry little garden snake Zexion, most likely – sent the real Riku to pick a fight with him that Marluxia understood why her hold felt different.

Riku was more skilled a fighter than Sora. More agile, more aggressive, more precise. But doubt weighed him down, and he was unsteady wielding his own darkness.

As with Sora, Spectre encapsulated his heart and harvested it at the count of six, tamped down her scythe on her flying armor and announced “It is done.”

Having a second hero under his control could prove useful, especially one so close to Sora. But it would serve him no benefit if he couldn’t tend to his plans himself.

“Why are you fused to me?” he asked Spectre after he sent a puppet to relocate Riku.

“I will keep you safe,” she declared.

“You were supposed to be removing your roots from my body so that I can return to the castle.”

“I cannot follow you there. I will not allow you to go into danger alone.”

“You will do as you’re told.”

She made no motion to oblige his request to be released. If it wasn’t one outburst of disobedience on this mission, it was another.

“Cut the connection.”

He turned to see her, still getting no response beyond that tranquil smile.

“Then I’ll do it myself.” He called his scythe in a coiling mass of dark thorns and rose petals. But before his hand could find purchase on Dahlia’s shaft, the thorned vines fell limp and the petals scattered prematurely. His arm lowered – not of his will, but under the pull of the roots joined with his skeleton.

“Do not cut it,” she said.

“Know your place, spirit.”

He needed to think. She was still a sapling Nobody. Lashing out at her was clearly getting him nowhere. “I gave you that body to aid me in battle, not to protect me. There are enemies in our path that you cannot defeat, and for that I need to monitor the ones who can.”

She thought for a long time. Marluxia didn’t interrupt her, lest he confuse her and bring them back to square one. She was moving in him again. She reached new tendrils out from his ribcage, eased them between his organs as if probing for something. His bones were not merely grafted onto the ends of her roots. They were completely incorporated into the root system.

Something in his chest squirmed when she touched it.

“Xemnas.”

He frowned. “How do you know that name?”

“Xemnas is our enemy.” His chest shuddered once more. “I understand.”

He recognized this lattice of roots growing in him. “What is that you’re holding?”

It only took until the count of six for this structure to cradle a heart from all sides. But that was impossible. He had nothing to cradle.

“What are you holding? Tell me you know what that is.”

She leaned down, reaching with a hand that was more talon than hand, and petted Marluxia’s hair with a single gargantuan finger.

“We will stay here. I will keep you safe.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always greatly appreciated!


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